KKH

For four days we waited in Kashgar for the dust to subside so that we could venture to Karakul Lake, which sits just off the famous Karakorum Highway linking China to Pakistan. We had seen beautiful pictures of this mysterious lake, but were dreading that we would not be able to see it for all of the spring dust. On the last possible day for our trip we woke to clear blue skies and headed off with our guide Tudajim and our driver.

As we headed south of Kashgar, the desert plains gave way to rugged sandy mountains

... And then these mountains gave way to snow covered peaks

Locals call this absolute beauty 'Sand Mountain'

One of the locals

Here is Karakul lake - the Kyrgyz yurt village that we stayed in is dwarfed by the surrounding mountains

Trent and our driver tucking into some local Kyrgyz cuisine inside our stunningly decorated all-in-one kitchen/living/bedroom

The hospitable local people that we stayed with

The view back to our village when we went for a stroll around the lake

Who thought we would have seen so many camels near the snow

Unfortunately, our time at Karakul Lake wasn't all beautiful scenery... it will also be remembered as a time when I got the sickest that I have been for a while. Without going into graphic details, let's just say that my tummy didn't agree with the half a dozen cups of yak butter tea, or maybe the yak soup, and at 11pm, 11:15pm, 11.30pm 11.40pm, 2am and 3am... I made dashes out into the exceedingly cold and windy night air to go to the open air toilet (ie dirt paddock). I dragged Trent out on some of these excursions (as official torch holder), including at 5am, when, to our surprise, it was snowing! By 7am, the wind had died completely, revealing an amazingly tranquil scene.

This is what we woke to - magic

This was the end of 14 months in Asia for us. The contrast between Karakul lake and our starting point of bustling Seoul reinforcing to us the incredible diversity of this continent.